Recent Posts

526

Living Room / Re: News Article: Old News, Served Fresh

« Last post by Lashiec on September 18, 2008, 10:35 AM »

Who said that?

527

Living Room / Re: The NSA Teams Up with the Chinese Government to Limit Internet Anonymity

« Last post by Lashiec on September 18, 2008, 09:14 AM »

So I guess this is made to defeat the usefulness of things like Tor and JAP, isn't it?

528

Living Room / Re: Sarah Palin, Hacked!

« Last post by Lashiec on September 18, 2008, 07:37 AM »

Uh, 4chan involved in the whole incident, that's a recipe for disaster . BTW, app, do not worry, the incident was well covered in tech sites, so it won't magically disappear.

I'll pass from making a political commentary, because really, the news speak for themselves. But, what's up with politicians? No one seems to know how to take care of his/her e-mail by themselves, or via their team for that matter.

529

Living Room / Re: News Article: Google Cuts IP Retention Time In Half

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 03:07 PM »

It may not be enough, though

530

Living Room / Re: Blog Post: Gait Analysis; Tracking You By Your Stride

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 02:42 PM »

Combine this with the pants-snooper launched in space and...

531

Developer's Corner / Re: stackoverflow.com - programmers Q&A site by jeff atwood + joel spolsky is public

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 02:15 PM »

(And once a guy writes a UI design book, never let him design an actual UI people will be using. Those modal-looking text entry "dialog boxes" that dim the rest of the browser window are soooo inconvenient and un-Web-like, I think. But maybe I'm just irritated bacause I can't log in :) )

-tranglos (September 15, 2008, 02:13 PM)

It's the latest Web 2.0 trend after the overuse of reflected logos :D

532

Living Room / Re: News Article: Old News, Served Fresh

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 02:13 PM »

And that's why I don't understand the stock market and the economics of the world. People are buying and selling imaginary numbers and for some reason the government has to take control of banks to keep the country from going into economic emergency?

-Deozaan (September 14, 2008, 10:02 PM)

It's complex for a reason

533

Living Room / Re: Is Opera sending information to Opera server everytime you hit enter?

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 12:13 PM »

Well, I am not looking for evil intentions here, but this kind of particular overlooking cannot be disregarded as just plain lazyness. Some people like to think that if someone is worried about privacy, he/she is going nuts, worrying about corporations, goverments are following him/her day and night. NO the issue is none of this. The main issue is that noone has any right or business to follow or track what I do until I let them to. This is not a paranoia, this is search for rights. Now those who like to ridicule these important issues are just shooting themselves in the foot by helping those sloppy lazzy or evil companies, call hem whatever you like.

Now Opera is helping you by serving phishing data but in return they are logging every url you click on. How come this is just a simple feature enabling or disabling issue?  This is an important thing that should not be enabled by default and they should mention it to the user spesifically during the install. It would be amazingly dumb if they have never thought about this flaw while implementing the feature.

-kartal (September 15, 2008, 11:12 AM)

No one is following or tracking you by using Opera's fraud protection. While it's true that perhaps it should not be enabled by default (it wasn't in versions pre-9.5), the thing is that you have more to lose by disabling than by not disabling it (actually, in this case the only thing you're losing are a few KB or less per site check). Read the link I provided above more carefully, particularly the section "Opera's approach: the fraud protection server".

534

General Software Discussion / Re: the actual browser divide: plugins

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 08:48 AM »

Gnosis does seem similar to IE slices in a way, but I ignore what are the benefits of this 'semantic' web thing hype it has been building for some time. If someone cares to explain... :)

Personally, I still find the integration of plugins with browsers quite faulty, as somehow their developers feel like they own your browser and install a toolbar here, a menu entry there, and one or two buttons in the status bar without asking and sometimes without an option to move them. I think there should be some guidelines on how to make extensions visible in a browser without taking over it, but so far there's nothing, and so plugins don't integrate as cleanly with a browser as they do with other type of programs. And that's why I try to keep the number of extensions in Firefox to a minimum, they already take enough space right now. That does not mean I'd love to have a plugin system in Opera, but it would need time to get it right (and UserJS is quite chaotic as it is now so...)

Plugins are also a double-edged sword, not only for the known performance problems they cause in Firefox, and the security havoc in IE, but also because of the attachment to them. So far I don't think it's a real problem, but in the future it could be, as not all developers can continue to develop their plugins, and some people are still keeping Firefox 2 because some of the extensions they use were not ported to 3. Such divides can be troublesome if the web moves forward, and browsers with less capabilities (and more security holes) are still around, and it also creates problems within the communities supporting those browsers.

Similar things have happened in other projects. For example, when foobar2000 developers decided to remove certain API calls used by a popular plugin, a sizeable portion of the users decided to remain with older versions so not lose this, and harsh criticism arose (which is being revived from time to time). Even the same Firefox project had a revolution with the AwesomeBar, with a long thread in MozillaZine full of people complaining about it, and a extension being developed to regain the old behaviour (I still don't know what it's exactly wrong with the AwesomeBar BTW).

535

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Malformed URLs Crash Acrobat 9

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 08:17 AM »

In short, if someone asks, Adobe locks or crashes. Just like it used to do in previous versions when closing the browser with the plugin loaded :D

At least it's not a serious vulnerability (unless I'm missing something), and otherwise Acrobat 9 is pretty nice, fast and everything (I thought it would never happen).

536

Living Room / Re: Is Opera sending information to Opera server everytime you hit enter?

« Last post by Lashiec on September 15, 2008, 08:06 AM »

Yes, Opera is tracking every movement you do on the Intertubes, and selling that information to the highest bidder (which usually is Google)

For more details, refer to the documentation (including how to disable it).

537

Living Room / Re: Has the LHC destroyed the world yet?

« Last post by Lashiec on September 12, 2008, 07:53 PM »

I think that is one of the biggest issues with science together with how difficult is to raise funding for even the most basic research. Scientists should try to communicate better what's the ultimate outcome of their projects, as small as they could be, and what's the ultimate benefit for the public, even if it's something purely economical in the short-term (creation of jobs and such).

Of course, press these days will only pick the biggest projects out there, so they're mostly on their own.

538

Living Room / Re: Would you surf porn in a public space?

« Last post by Lashiec on September 12, 2008, 07:06 PM »

Maxim, a PORN magazine?! You've gotta be kidding me!

Still, yeah, surfing porn sites in a public place is not exactly something very appropriate. It's not only that it might be seen by people who should not (or want to) see that, but also because I always considered such things a private matter, and personally, I prefer not to know about what people like to do in their intimacy.

539

Living Room / Re: Has the LHC destroyed the world yet?

« Last post by Lashiec on September 12, 2008, 01:26 PM »

So far, the LHC is a good thing for everyone. It has brought Ken back, and the scientists working in it are too busy with catchy rap songs to create black holes

It has. You are now in a parallel alternate universe exactly like the one you were in before they fired up the LHC.

-40hz (September 11, 2008, 10:47 AM)

Not fair, that was going to be my answer

If the world ends, will we at least have a few minutes to think about how cool it is and watch it end? or will it happen in the blink of an eye and no one gets to appreciate it?

-mouser (September 11, 2008, 11:39 AM)

Nah, if it ends by means of the LHC you won't even have the time to check up the site. And then, how would you know if it ended? Now, wouldn't you be curious about what happens if the black hole sucks everything up? (according to Futurama, we'll play an endless round of Dungeons & Dragons :-D)

Think of such classics as: nuclear reactors being perfectly safe; hydrocarbon emissions and the greenhouse effect actually being beneficial (i.e. forestalling another ice age); all the product safety claims being made about half the pharmaceutical products currently being sold; and slapping the buzzword 'green' on every product and service out there.

-40hz (September 11, 2008, 01:42 PM)

Funny, I would consider just the first one as a classic, the other three is the first time I heard about them (yes, yes, that's including strip mining).

The intro scene from Another World is pretty actual: YouTube
What a beautyful game, and it was about the 1990.

-Mark0 (September 12, 2008, 01:22 PM)

That would be more like a temporal dimension vortex actually (ala Half-Life).

540

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a an application that can test my rams.

« Last post by Lashiec on September 09, 2008, 06:48 PM »

MemTest86+

541

General Software Discussion / Re: Bypass internet filtering?

« Last post by Lashiec on September 09, 2008, 06:47 PM »

Whoa, being blocked in the dorms is a completely different thing. While it's tempting to go commando, perhaps you should talk about the issue with the IT department. I mean, everyone needs some relax from time to time, and negating that even in your own room, it's a bit extreme.

542

General Software Discussion / Re: Yet another Hotkey app!

« Last post by Lashiec on September 09, 2008, 06:38 PM »

Cool, I always forget to save a copy of that card.

543

General Software Discussion / Re: Time to reinstall Windows? Or get a new desktop?

« Last post by Lashiec on September 09, 2008, 05:31 PM »

2001? Get a new computer ASAP

I suggest you look around a few hardware sites, particularly system guides to make yourself an idea of what you want in the system, but CPU-wise, it's either a dual core or a quad, preferably an Intel chip. Your criteria for choosing a chip is anything you need to get a good one, as long as the model number has a leading 7 or an 8 (dual core) or a 9 (quad core) as those are the newer ones, using a 45 nm process, which means better performance, less heat, etc. Plainly speaking, they're better.

The videocard thing depends if you're into gaming. If you're not, you could get something mid-range, but new enough to have the logic that helps with video decoding (if you're into HD playback and such).

Sound, yeah, for general playback, the motherboard chip should be enough, unless you use a nice speaker system, in which case it would be nice to have a decent soundcard for better quality.

Fans is generally a complex issue once you start using too many around the case, but the bare minimum is one in the front sucking air, and another in the back expelling it.

544

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome -- a new browser coming (in beta) in a few hours

« Last post by Lashiec on September 09, 2008, 04:56 PM »

wut, teh ceiling cat. Clearly, you were up to nothing good

545

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: And... The Ultimate Steal makes a comeback

« Last post by Lashiec on September 09, 2008, 04:43 PM »

What regions of the world is this offer limited to?

-Deozaan (September 09, 2008, 04:37 PM)

Lazy guy

Just a catch: you have to be a student, and live in one of the countries that offers the promotion (hover the mouse cursors over the flag to see them).

-Lashiec (September 03, 2008, 08:55 PM)

546

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome -- a new browser coming (in beta) in a few hours

« Last post by Lashiec on September 08, 2008, 06:06 PM »

"Most of the changes are visible, aside from security changes, which we must keep private in order to keep users safe," Google said of the changelog.

Erm, yeah, Apple style. Like no one discovered any security issue these past days

547

Living Room / Re: Blog: Hacking Your Vote

« Last post by Lashiec on September 08, 2008, 05:55 PM »

Paper ballots FTW

548

General Software Discussion / Re: What Microsoft does right

« Last post by Lashiec on September 08, 2008, 05:48 PM »

I think the guys did deliver for the most part when it comes to gaming (Red Ring of Death aside :D). They did a good job with the original XBOX and now with the XBOX 360, housing a good deal of obscure but very good games with the former (very PC-like), learning from their mistakes and creating an excellent system with a good game library with the latter, capable of challenging the Sony behemoth, although I'm concerned Microsoft's huge paychecks are getting too much in the way as lately.

Also, they played a role in the often missed Dreamcast (*sob*), and they published excellent 2nd and 3rd party games under the Microsoft Game Studios label for the PC: Age of Empires, Dungeon Siege, Crimson Skies, Freelancer, Rallisport Challenge, Rise of Nations...

Apart from that, it's commendable (up to some point) that in recent times they have been able to adapt to a fast-changing market, as well as listening to the customers and trying to fix their bigger errors. Of course, it's questionable up to what point Microsoft's own initiatives play a part compared to the looming presence of the competition waiting for them to take advantage of every mistake they commit.

And they bought Sysinternals (along other important companies). Yeah, that was a good move :D

549

DC Gamer Club / Re: Steam, and the gift of game...

« Last post by Lashiec on September 08, 2008, 05:16 PM »

Weird, both are French publishers

Not to mention Beyond Good & Evil is practically being given away here.

550

Living Room / Re: Google Gets Exclusive Rights To Your Pants

« Last post by Lashiec on September 08, 2008, 05:05 PM »

If I were one of the wives of those two guys, I would be concerned about what sites are they looking at during work :P

And if I were a shareholder, I would be concerned too, wasting precious money just so see my pants :D